by colin tudge
Britain has been sadly diminished these past few decades by a series of government follies. They include Eden’s hare-brained attempt in 1956 to reclaim control of Suez; Thatcher’s introduction of neoliberal economics in the 1980s; Blair’s gung-ho plunge into George W Bush’s disastrous war in Iraq in 2003; Osborne’s policy of austerity in 2010; and the general waywardness of Boris. And then of course in 2022 Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng dropped into nos. 10 and 11 Downing Street for just long enough to trash the economy again. (See “The brief ascendency of Kwasi and Liz” October 19 2022.)
But of all these self-inflicted wounds none is more serious than Brexit, brought about and ill-managed by David Cameron in 2016, and eagerly supported and promoted by such intellectual and moral giants as Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The economic and administrative difficulties have long been apparent. Now, as Putin tries to re-trace the footsteps of Peter the Great and the US under Trump goes walkabout to goodness knows where, the general need for a more united Europe across the board, in partnership with like-minded others like Canada and New Zealand, is all too obvious and indeed is urgent.
Of vital importance too, if we truly care about civilisation, is Britain’s cultural links with the continental mainland – as commemorated and celebrated in a book called A Love-Letter to Europe, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2019. I wrote a piece for it which in the light of recent events has a new relevance, so I thought it would be timely to re-publish it here. (I hope Hodder or indeed Stoughton don’t mind.)
A FAREWELL TO EUROPE
A message of regret from Colin Tudge
First published in A Love-Letter to Europe (Hodder & Stoughton 2019)
Europe is not the only great civilization and I do not want to suggest that it is the greatest. China, India, Arabia, Turkey, Nigeria, Mexico and many more – all have given rise to great civilizations and all have brought wondrous things to the world. The history of Europe is largely unspeakable and it is still deeply flawed. Of course, too, Europe is hugely heterogeneous, pulling this way and that, and whatever is good is often outweighed by what is all too obviously vile. The Ancient Greeks, who invented democracy (or least invented the word) and laid the foundations of western art, philosophy, and much of science, and are presented in our most ancient and venerated schools as paragons, were also wondrous cruel.
But Europe certainly has the ingredients of greatness. Chauvinism is a dreadful and destructive thing yet I feel, chauvinistically, that with due care, Europe more than most could still provide a model for the whole world, showing how life could be both for us and for our fellow creatures — not just for the next few desperate decades but for many centuries to come. At the very least, if it is humanity’s ambition truly to create a better world, kinder and more secure and ever more diverse, then Europe with its cross-the-board ingenuity and underlying morality and metaphysics, must be a key player.
England is my home and I will defend it like family. I was born here and have always lived here and know no other languages apart from cerveza and Dankeschon. Often, though, when we’re in France or Italy or wherever, I feel that Europe’s assessment of Albion through most of history has been perfectly justified. We are barbarian. So we have conserved our stately homes where the very rich live but we have largely wrecked the cities and villages of past centuries that were home to the rest of us. We have nothing comparable to, say, Bruges. We never did of course – not quite like that. But we did have a great deal else that should have been treasured and yet, more zealously than any other western European country it seems, we let the planners loose on it. And of course the speculators.
More generally, it seems to me, the countries of mainland Europe follow as a matter of course, and without usually thinking about it, the core teaching of St Benedict. That is, they focus much more that we do on the minutiae of everyday life – the details that are the stuff of good living and civilization, a firm basis for conviviality and for loftier flights. Architecture is one example of this. Food, very strikingly, is another. Civilizations can and must be built around food – both the cooking and the raising of it. In particular, all the world’s greatest cuisines from Italy to China use meat very sparingly – as stock or garnish and for only occasional feasts – and make best use of whatever grows locally. If everyone everywhere learned to cook like the world’s best cooks (not the celebrity chefs — just the many millions who cook for their families) and farmed accordingly (small organic farms with not many animals and lots of tender loving care) then everyone in the world could be well fed, to the very highest standards.
So it is that while Britain has Tesco and Witherspoons and KFC and Travelodge, Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Holland, and Switzerland still have a host of wondrous patisseries and charcutiers and family-run cafes and auberges, still serving wondrous dishes that often are unique to themselves. One of the most memorable meals I ever had, with Ruth (my wife), was in Sienna – of tripe, cow’s intestines: beautifully marinated and herbed with local tomatoes and garlic and white beans, and a very ordinary but very drinkable local wine. We could all live like that but Britain apparently has chosen not to. Tripe insofar as it is obtainable at all is traditionally served in big white slabs, seethed in milk, with onions. Not appetizing. Yet all it needs is a little technique – and of course a little focus on the minutiae of life, on which the rest can be built.
There is much that’s ghastly and getting worse on mainland Europe but on the whole they seem to hang on to values – historical, moral, metaphysical – far better than we are doing. No-where else in the world apart from the US, to whose coat-tails we are encouraged to cling, has embraced neoliberalism as zealously as successive British governments have done. None other is quite so committed to short-term wealth at the expense of everything else. Most – all? – European countries of sufficient power have a grisly imperial past but none hangs on to it quite as sedulously or proudly as Britain does, or chooses to imagine, as Britain does, that it is still a world power that should “take back control” and go it alone; or imagines that this is a worthy ambition.
I feel, vicariously, somewhat irrationally, and no doubt presumptuously, as an ordinary human being on the edge of Europe, an affinity with the European greats. I feel in a very odd way that St Francis, Schubert, the French Impressionists, Einstein, Erasmus, Dante (not that I’ve ever read any Dante) are my family. They certainly featured large in my education if only, in some cases, by name. In short, I feel that Europe is a club that I want to belong to and felt, when we were part of the EU, that I did belong to. Brexit is a bereavement, a perversely self-inflicted banishment; and in all literature, banishment is seen as the most grievous of punishments. Britain’s secession brings Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach to mind: a “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” leaving in its wake the “naked shingles of the world”.
Welcome to the world of naked shingles and bilateral trade agreements.
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